Here the Fates are Changed
by satan-chillin
Summary: A look in the demonblood!Sam AU featured in Episode 4
1. The Rift

_Now_

* * *

She cut through the frigid evening breeze of Lebanon and abruptly stopped.

She listened.

The Hellhounds were rushing to reach her, with the advantage that they could see her while she could not. She cursed her inadequate preparation—she could have placed a spell on those beasts before they could even track her smell.

It didn't matter in the end. No one knew she could escape, certainly not in her present state. It had been a harrowing few days, but it should be worth it.

She _would_ make it worth it.

"Just a little more," she murmured, wincing in pain from the sharp jolt in her stomach. "Just a little more, dear."

A few more meters, she would get there. They would escape, and they would both be safe.

They would be ridden of this world. They would be ridden of everyone. Of _him_. And she never wanted to see his face ever again and be reminded of how he wanted nothing but to—

"Going somewhere?" said the person that appeared right in front of her. He was grinning maniacally before his eyes completely turned jet-black. "Boss ain't happy that you sent us in a wild goose chase."

A demon and he wasn't alone.

Four more appeared and made a circular formation to surround her on all sides, all bearing iron chains with all the intent to subdue her. Not terribly remarkable demons, though they rely on their strength in numbers.

Just her luck then.

They knew her. They knew what she was capable of. They might be many but still weak. And she preyed on the weak.

There was a crackle of magic before purple lightning simultaneously shot out to five different directions, killing the small-fries that dare stood her way.

The cold night air smelled of burnt flesh, and she took the opportunity to continue fleeing, the Hellhounds hot on her heels. It wouldn't be long now, a few more meters and the tear would finally be visible. She sent her stomach comforting rubs, willing it to cooperate for a short while.

"Bear with me, dear. We'll make it."

For all she knew the Hellhounds were a maul away, silent creatures that they were when stalking their prey, but she never looked back. She couldn't afford any more pauses after the demons already distracted her long enough.

The longer she lingered in this world, the closer he was to finding her. Them.

Her foot hurt and her legs ached. The bulge of her stomach was heavy, and while she knew that the child was as resilient as her, she hoped that there wouldn't be any lasting effect from putting too much strain on her body.

Irrationally, she wanted to break down and cry, to just stop and turn back around. The odds were against her, and the strength to fight back was slowly slipping away the more she ran through the dark without seeing the glimmer at the end of the road.

_No, no, no._ She was Rowena MacLeod. Pregnant or not, she wouldn't be carried away with her hormones. She was the master of her own self, damn it! It was the very same reason that she sought escape with her child during the last month of her pregnancy.

Rowena looked up, panting heavily, and saw the bright glowing line.

She wanted to weep in joy. "We're almost there, darling. Help mummy get through, and you can kick my insides all you want after."

"That's adorable."

Rowena froze and whirled.

"Hello, Rowena." Sam appeared not far behind her, smiling handsomely. "Where are you going?"

She raised her chin defiantly, glaring. "I think you know where."

"I might have an idea, but I could be wrong," he said with a faint shrug.

"Oh, spare me, Samuel."

"Come now, Rowena. I want to hear it directly from you. From my wife." Sam pursed his lips. "I want to know, as your husband, what I did wrong."

Rowena let out a derisive laugh. "Nothing yet, _husband_. But I know. I know what you _will_ do to my child."

"It's mine too. We made it together. Rather enthusiastically, I might add."

"That's something I cannot change, Sam," she said, her lip quivering in fury. "But I can keep my child from his father. This child will be more powerful than you, but he won't be like you, and I'll make sure of it."

"And you'll be the only parent it'll know, is that it?" Sam cocked his head. "Because you're a very good influence, dear."

She shook her head. "My son will be special, but he won't be like you and I. He'll be nothing like us, Sam, because this one has the greatest chance to be good."

Sam was instantly against her back, wrapping his arms around her and his large hand around her neck, not squeezing yet but pressing dangerously. "And I don't want him to be good, Rowena. I want him strong. I want him on my side like a good boy. My son will make me proud, and it'll be my face that he sees first and forever once you give birth to him."

"You wish, Winchester," Rowena hissed.

With a strangled cry, she futilely attempted to pry herself from Sam's hold. He chuckled at the useless struggle, pulling Rowena further to him, breath hot against her ear.

"Come back to me, and I'll forget this ever happened. We can still be family, the three of us. You, me, our son. Together, we'll be a force to be reckoned with, and we'll rule. Isn't that what you wanted?" Sam asked softly, inhaling the scent of her hair.

"It was, until you decided that you don't like what you saw in the future."

"Does it matter?" Sam asked, fingers trailing over Rowena's stomach. "We'll make stronger children that are more to our liking, children we can mold. You want a daughter? Then we'll try until we get her."

Rowena's eyes shuttered. She knew that she wasn't a good person, but hearing Sam speak this way… she wondered if he had been even a human before all that demon blood.

"You poor man. You'll never understand."

Rowena sent a spike of electricity against Sam's abdomen before he could even tighten his hold around her. She twisted away from his arms in a flurry, sending Sam back with a crackle of magic to his chest.

"_Abite!" _

Sam staggered backward, the force only hit him by half. Rowena cursed under her breath. She took a shot at it, and that was it. She huddled the cloak around her tighter. She was saving up a stronger enchantment written all over her skin, but utilizing it meant using up all the energy she was preserving to pass through the dimensional gate.

Using more aggressive magic meant risking the child, something Rowena couldn't afford.

"Did you already forget?" Sam asked, his calm voice betrayed by the brewing anger in his eyes. "You can't hurt me, dear."

Sam held out his hand, his eyes overtaken by complete darkness. Rowena felt her throat being squeezed by an invisible force. Unflinching, Sam clenched his fist closer and closer…

Rowena wheezed, choking as her vision became blurred and clouded with black spots at the edges.

She would die here. She and her son would die here out of her foolishness.

Against her better judgment, Rowena prayed.

It was a desperate call to someone, to anyone. She hardly cared whoever answered—if there was any who would. But it wasn't for her, the cry for help.

It was for the child, like everything was that Rowena was willing to break her principles for, and she hated that while she had a son before that she had carried for the same amount of time, it was as if the fierce protectiveness she was feeling for her son was new.

And she supposed that it was. She was never a mother to Fergus, but with this one in her stomach she would try to be, everything else be damned.

Rowena's vision dimmed, and as quick as her eyes fell to a close did the grip on her neck slackened. She dropped on her knees, gasping for breath and cradling her stomach. There was a firm hold on her shoulders that pulled her up on her feet, and when she blearily found out who it was, Rowena didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the unexpected twist.

"Crowley," Sam greeted. "I don't recall calling you," he said, though there was hardly any confusion in his tone. He made a move and was hindered by an invisible force. Sam merely looked intrigued.

"Not you. She did," Crowley shot back. His eyes darted by Sam's feet, pleased that his trap held Sam on the spot. "Huh. That actually worked."

"Not for long," Sam warned.

"Enough to get her to the other side."

"You know what I do to traitors, Crowley."

"Yes, torture, yada, yada, yada. I'm sure you'll be inventive, though not terribly original, I'm afraid." Crowley slowly backed up to the rift, taking Rowena with him by her elbow. "Ja." He sent a mocking salute.

Dazedly, Rowena allowed herself to be pulled, Crowley's grip on her arm almost painful. Not that it mattered with the adrenaline coursing through her and with the way she was unable to tear her eyes away from Sam who held her gaze evenly as he struggled with the temporary bindings Crowley set onto him.

Rowena managed to escape with Crowley, but with her was the final look from Sam that held a promised cruelty for her and for her child.

* * *

_Then_

* * *

The door clicked open.

The quiet, unhurried footsteps and the lack of her warding's response clued her in as to who it was. Rowena remained firmly in place and took a sip of her tea, her stomach giving a slight jolt at the new presence behind her.

"That was quick," she said, placing down her cup.

"Not quick enough to my liking," Sam said. He approached, getting closer and closer until he was pressing against her back, his hands running down the sides of her bare arms. Sam inhaled the scent of her hair and descended further down to her nape. "Doesn't matter. Dean's dead."

Rowena wanted to laugh. Sam didn't even make sure that he was right, his arrogance and impatience always getting the best of him whenever it concerned the Resistance and its leader in particular.

"_Dean is alive, Castiel. Get him now while you still can."_

"Did he know?" Rowena asked with a mild gasp at the teeth that grazed her neck.

Sam's fingers trailed lower and lower, palm splayed on her abdomen. "About this?" He chuckled on her ear. "Doubt it. Dean would rather talk about getting me back to him. That brain of his could never understand that he was years too late."

Rowena's eyes fluttered close at the sensation coming from the hand massaging the small bump of her stomach. She could feel the warmth of power Sam was extending to her… to the child.

The poor child who was the only innocent being among all these.

The unfortunate child who would be born into this world with Rowena as the mother and Sam as the father.

The child who would be strong but would never be normal.

"You've been busy, I see," Sam murmured against her neck, close to the vein where he liked it the most. "Makes me wonder why they had trouble eliminating the Resistance if they're as stupid as this, going after you."

Rowena rolled her eyes before turning around and inching closer to Sam, nails dragging from his chest to his shoulders in a deliberately slow and sensuous movement. She tiptoed to catch the side of Sam's face, running her lips in feather-light touches. "Well, men still believe in the concept of a damsel in distress," she whispered.

"Then I'm not most men," Sam replied, gingerly pushing a stray lock of her red hair behind the ear.

Rowena smirked, a pink slip of a tongue darting out. "No, dear, you're not most men."

They met in a crash of lips that was all biting than soft caresses—they were exactly in their element, with the hurried touches and the tearing fabrics, with the palms and fingers that hurt when they gripped, with the mouths that drew blood and pained moans.

If Rowena was to say what encompassed as her love for Sam Winchester, it was the sex. She loved it whenever he bit her neck and lap on the wound; he would taste her like she was filled with demon blood that he could get addicted to. She loved it whenever his touches trailed heat on her skin, purposeful and always finding their goal. She loved it whenever he twisted her hair around his fist, and Sam would pull them to bring her nearer, to meet him halfway there. She loved it whenever she felt that power inside her because Sam Winchester never did things by halves; he rutted like a dying man, and he fucked like it was his last chance to do so.

In the end, it hardly surprised Rowena that she allowed his seed to grow in her. She loved the strength of the child's father, and half of what she was carrying in her womb would inherit that part of Sam, while the other would get hers, her magic and her will to live.

While it was still too early to determine whether it was love that she felt for the developing child, Rowena had felt an ugly pang when it had entered her mind to kill the child the first time she learned of its existence.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that she had never entertained the notion during her pregnancy with Fergus before when she had been the wee naïve girl who fell in love and believed that she would have been a good mother, but once it had started to go all wrong, she had blamed Fergus for the difficulties of her life. She had abandoned Fergus at eight, and it was on her that he died in a ditch somewhere, torn by dozens of wild animals like prized meat for dinner.

This time around, Rowena was aware of several facts: she wasn't fit to be a mother; love was a weakness; she was the strongest witch that remained alive up to this era; her magic remained comparable to Sam's abilities, at least at the present; and that she was given another chance in motherhood.

Rowena was evil, petty, and terribly flawed. She wasn't redeemable. She was in a twisted relationship with a man who was no longer quite human in mind and body alike.

But she wanted to try.

Rowena wanted to be a mother of this poor child who never got to choose his or her own parents.

And she would give this child the world she never got to provide to Fergus.

* * *

Rowena woke to the faint buzz that came from her warding. She relaxed knowing it wasn't entirely a hostile intrusion, but on the other hand…

"I'm over 300 years old. Beauty sleep isn't optional," she addressed the unwelcome guest with an annoyed sigh as she sat up. She must have been a sight with her frazzled red mane.

"Then you're not missing out much since it clearly isn't working out for you," Crowley said dryly, idly taking a look around the room and wrinkled his nose in distaste at her state. "Get dressed."

Rowena merely raised an eyebrow at him and snorted, lying back on the sheets and twisting with a pleased moan that she knew would irk the demon to no end. "I'll stay in if you don't mind."

"I _do _mind."

She mock-pouted, letting the sheet slide down bit by bit. "Not even if I ask you to keep me company?" she teased.

"Spare me, woman. Old hags are not even my type."

Rowena supposed that was an insult, albeit a weak one, and she could have been offended if not for the amusement on how easy it was to get a rise out of Crowley.

"What are you doing here, Crowley?" she asked in a bored tone.

"Cleaning up after your mess."

"Volatile magic, dear," she reminded him. "The fun kind."

"For you, maybe. Certainly not for me."

Rowena's mouth quirked. She was never a fan of Sam's simpering right-hand demon that for some reason Sam actually trusted as far as trust went, though she liked that Crowley always has a retort ready for her when most of Sam's minions were averse to sharing breathing space with her. It was entertaining to hex them for the sheer enjoyment of it, though she did end up losing interest just as quick.

"Then feel free to clean up the mess and be quick about it lest the smell gets worse," she ordered with a bored flick of her hair.

"I'm not your housemaid, woman."

"Pretty sure that's what you're here for," she sneered.

Crowley stared down at her for a second longer before snapping his fingers. There were shuffling movements outside the door and the sound of multiple things being dragged away from the hall. Crowley remained firmly in place, the only movement he made was a nod to a lesser demon who knocked (Rowena was impressed some manners were ingrained on these lackeys) and peered. The same demon picked up the corpse with a broken spine propped on a corner once he was given permission to enter.

They worked swiftly and quietly as they came and went. Crowley lingered on the same spot and Rowena paid him no mind. If Sam commanded him to stay still as a statue for days, he would have; a lap dog was a more fitting term for Crowley than a right-hand.

Rowena stood, securing the blanket around her while she moved towards the table where the scotch was, pouring herself a glass. She was pretty sure it was scotch, by the look and smell of it, though when she drank, it was the taste of apple juice that met her tongue.

Irritated, she turned sharply at Crowley who was sporting a small triumphant smirk.

"Put it back," she growled.

"No can do. Not that I care about the mother, but I heard that it's harmful to the infant."

"You care for the wee babe?" Rowena taunted.

"More like I know that my king will have my head if I let any harm come to his kid. Even if said harm is coming from the mother."

Rowena gave him a little knowing smirk; she very much wanted to throw the liquid right at his face. "Got myself a wee sitter then. Oh, joy."

"Yes, I am also beside myself with joy with this… assignment." Crowley's smile was saccharine in return. "I look forward to spending the next eight months with you, Rowena."

Only when Crowley vanished did Rowena truly threw the glass at the direction Crowley formerly was.

* * *

In the first two months, Rowena expected that Crowley would be hovering over her back every minute of every day, not because to suck up to the Boyking further and cement his position but rather to piss the hell out of Rowena. But when Rowena hardly saw a shadow of the demon, she believed that Crowley equally couldn't stand her presence.

It was just as well that she hardly saw him around. Rowena's alone time in her own space was the only respite she could get since getting involved with Sam Winchester. She sure wasn't about to let a demon to interrupt her peace in her territory.

There was nary a thing that she missed about pregnancy. She hated the changes that were starting to show on her body, nothing magic couldn't fix, mind, but the idea that she couldn't control this particular process (as well as her emotions) irked her to no end.

She remembered being elated the first time she carried a babe. Fergus was quite a kicker that his father had loved listening as her stomach made those odd sounds. Roderick had always told her that she was beautiful and he couldn't wait for his son to be born. Bloated and overrun by hormones, Rowena had thought she was the luckiest woman in the world then, an expecting mother who was dearly loved by the love of her life.

She had been such a stupid girl.

Rowena cursed without hesitation whenever Crowley would drop by, always appearing behind her with all the intention of catching her unaware. The fact that her warding was letting him in unharmed meant that he was yet to be hostile towards her, something she took comfort in. She wasn't under the illusion that she would be safe around Sam's demons, his wife or not. Not that she could stand to linger faithfully by his side like an airhead whose only use was for breeding.

Crowley became a constant presence that Rowena couldn't shake off, tailing her like a shadow whenever she went out to stretch her legs a do a bit of witchery. Once, she tried a modified enchantment that confounded him. He did lose her, and the two hours that followed before he could find her weren't wasted. Since then, Crowley would watch her like a hawk, but oh, well, she could always try something else.

Aside from his overbearing presence, however, Crowley turned out to be useful when she was in need of something. An ingredient or a book and he would ask what for, then she would give him a vague answer that he would accept with a suspicious squint of his eyes, though he never failed to return with what she requested at hand. Crowley was more useful in fetching her cravings, odd ones that sometimes she thought did not exist until he presented it to her.

It was like having a servant on her beck and call, albeit a servant that would insult her and call her fat with her bulging stomach, but if she was delusional, she would think he was spoiling her.

Sam would visit once or twice a week, often in the night, and often when she was asleep. He would slip under the covers with soft and loving touches on her stomach. If she didn't know better, she would mistake him as an affectionate husband who couldn't wait for his child to be born. Like Roderick.

Rowena did know better.

Sam's visits weren't without purpose. She could feel it, the power under his palm as he touched her stomach. He was strengthening it in his own way, and as he nailed her like an insatiable man, Rowena did not want to think what would inevitably be the next step of Sam's plans for the child.

It came as soon as the following day in a form of Crowley bearing a thermos.

"He wants you to drink it all," Crowley relayed, his tone clipped and without the smugness that she was used to. "Vitamins."

She didn't have to know what the content was. She had had blood before, mostly of lambs and goats, and once or twice of a sacrificial human. But a demon's blood was nothing compared to those, its rancid smell of sulfur alone was enough to turn her stomach.

Crowley watched her with an unreadable expression as she swallowed the disgusting syrupy blood. It was the most horrid thing Rowena had ever taken, and it wasn't even half of the container when her own body reacted, her stomach aching. She lurched by the bin and vomited the blood, her breakfast, and all sort of bile in her. Rowena heaved until nothing could be expelled.

She scowled up at Crowley, hating that he saw her on her knees on the floor, puking all the contents of her stomach. Rowena hated that someone saw her this weak.

"Out," she hissed.

For once, Crowley complied without protest.

Rowena fell on the sheets without bothering to clean, her chest welling up with something ugly. Like she wanted to cry when she shouldn't. She wouldn't.

She fell asleep tiredly, angrily, her fists clutching the sheets. When she woke up, the bin was empty and she was tidied, the sleeve she used to wipe her mouth earlier pristine.

By her bedside, the thermos was already empty.

* * *

It became a routine for the next two months that followed.

Her bulge went larger, the child was more agitated as it kicked and kicked in the night that cost her sleep. The upside was that it knew how to behave when Rowena would send it a spark of her magic.

Crowley continued to come and go with a fresh batch of demon blood that Rowena never finished but would turn up empty when she wasn't looking. She was well-aware who had a hand in it, but there was an unspeakable agreement between them not to acknowledge it.

It was difficult when it was Sam who would bring the demon blood to her. Sam liked to drink with her like it was vintage one shared with a partner under the moonlight. And Rowena supposed that it was wine for Sam as it was poison for her.

Rowena knew that the child would be powerful, and yet she couldn't help but be concerned at the child eventually warming up to the demon blood she was moderately consuming.

"No," she said defiantly one day when Crowley arrived on the dot.

Crowley merely looked down at her and vanished the container away with a faint shrug. "About bloody time I hear that. For someone with your charming personality, you sure have a hard time saying a simple 'No'."

Rowena was an interesting mix of anger and surprise, though she eventually let the former won, saying, "If you've been waiting for me to refuse, then you shouldn't have bothered with bringing that despicable drink in the first place."

"I'm following orders from the higher-up, woman. He told me to bring it to you, but he didn't say to make sure that you drink it all. Technically, I'm still following his command."

Rowena couldn't suppress the amused scoff that escaped her. Maybe Crowley wasn't such a simpering weasel of a demon as she thought.

He brought him fruits cut into pieces, and it was funny how he looked hesitant when he handed them to her like some kind of peace offering.

Crowley wasn't a friend, and knowing him, he must have some kind of hidden agenda by trying to get on her good side. But for once Rowena wanted to take that bit of civility for herself like a woman who never knew an ounce of kindness.

Rowena didn't protest when Crowley handed her a glass of milk and that was it for that day.

* * *

There was a shift in their dynamic starting the following day.

It was the little things that Rowena noticed, like additional sweets after lunch or Crowley actually walking close by while outdoors instead of popping in and out. A more significant display was when she was hurling her guts out during her morning sickness and he would hand him a towel or a hanky after. It was far from him pushing her hair away when her head was in the toilet bowl, but she appreciated the gesture either way.

Close to the end of her second trimester, Rowena's mood swings worsened and her cravings went more and more peculiar. Crowley wasn't any less annoying, though she developed a tolerance for his snark that the banter became more entertaining than irritating.

It got up to the point that a card or board game was introduced to pass the time. Rowena wouldn't dwell much on how it started, but it involved trying to one-up each other when it came to cheating. Rowena was far from surprised anymore that Crowley knew minor witchcraft.

Must have been the general mood of laxness when Rowena made the mistake to ask where Crowley picked up his tricks.

His face immediately shuttered, the lines around his meatsuit's eyes tight and angry before he got up and left without so much of an excuse.

Rowena was bothered enough to be offended.

Sensitive, that one, she thought belatedly, and a part of her was satisfied that she was the one who unearthed that detail, only she was startled as well that it wasn't worth the week of no companion.

Crowley returned on a Sunday afternoon where Rowena was inexplicably and ridiculously crying over a cheesy romance in Amazon Prime, and Rowena was past the point of caring whether he saw her tears. He snorted when he saw what it was that had her spilling like a dam, mocked her a bit for her choice of show, and proceeded to hand her a bowl of strawberries dipped in chocolate.

They were heaven in her mouth, and she believed he laced them with some kind of potion when she realized that she was glad that Crowley came back.

"I think it's a boy," Rowena shared one day between a game of chess. She made it sound as nonchalant as she could, but Crowley had spent enough time with her to see past the act. He didn't point it out.

"Congratulations are in order," Crowley said, equally casual. "Should we celebrate?"

"Only if you let me drink this time."

"I can think of a high-class grape juice."

Rowena rolled her eyes amusedly. "Oh, well, that was worth a shot."

She pushed a bishop and took a knight; Crowley took her piece with a rook in return. It went on for another couple of minutes, the stretch of silence with only the sound of moving pieces across the board. Rowena basked on the tranquility she never thought she would have with Crowley, of all people.

Still, Rowena couldn't stop herself from asking: "Did you have a mother, Crowley?"

She watched as his fingers froze above a pawn, and she knew she hit that sore spot again. She didn't expect him to answer her, but he did anyway, much to her surprise. "There was a woman who brought me to this world if that's what you're asking."

"Not a great mother then with that start."

"A mother? Please. She was never one."

His words struck a chord in Rowena, made her recall again her other child. Heavens, she has been thinking of Fergus quite frequently since her second pregnancy. "I think that's what my son will tell me too."

Crowley's eyes flickered at her stomach. "A little early for that," he muttered vaguely.

"Not talking about this boy," she murmured. "Another one I had long, long ago," she admitted, looking away distantly. "I never loved that child."

She missed the way Crowley zeroed his focus on her sharply that it could cut the air. "Why?" he asked after a while, head no longer in the game.

"I could give a number of reasons, but it all boiled down to his eyes," she said wistfully.

"Is this a story about you scooping the poor lad's eyes?" he asked lightly.

"Worse. I entertained thoughts of killing that boy. It wasn't my greatest moments, but it's the truth." Rowena smiled wanly.

Crowley snorted. "Basically, you just told me that you hated a kid for something he couldn't help with."

"Indeed. Every time I looked at the child's eyes, I saw Rowena, the weak, scared, and pale girl who reeked of filth and death, who was foolish enough to believe that a man would give her the world. I never loved that boy not because he looked like his father; I never loved him because he was a living testament of my greatest mistake, mocking me right at my face by having my eyes."

If Rowena was to observe Crowley closely, she would have seen the minute crack in his careful mask of indifference until it went deep.

"If I didn't hate him, I would have loved him," Rowena whispered. "And love is a weakness."

"Clearly you haven't learned if you have another bun in the oven."

Her mouth formed a smirk. "And I thought that as a demon you know that I helped created this for my own gain," she said. "Power, for one."

There was an unpleasant tug from her stomach once the words left her lips. It was a lie, probably. Not that Crowley needed to know that.

"Of course," he simply said, though his expression was patronizing, a tad knowing. "Whatever you say."

* * *

On the same evening, she was lying on Sam's chest. It was oddly domestic, with the way he idly played with her mussed-up red curls while she languidly stroked his arm. The child liked it, she could tell, with his gentle lurches that Rowena acknowledged.

"Dean's alive," Sam said, apropos to nothing.

A bit tricky to fake her surprise when she already knew some time ago. "A cockroach, that one."

Sam grunted in agreement, not pausing his fingers. Shortly, they found her chin, tipping her face upward to him. "They know now." Rowena tilted her head in confusion. "About you and the kid. You know what that means."

Rowena wasn't a coward, nor was she easily scared, but she wasn't an idiot to dismiss completely what Sam was telling her. "Should I expect guests from now on?" she asked. She would never let her voice quiver—Rowena MacLeod wouldn't shake at the high possibility of danger alone.

But that was the thing, she wasn't afraid for herself; she was afraid for someone who was still way weaker and dependent on her. She could go run straight in the frontlines, but should anything happen to her would happen to the child as well.

And, oh, that answered what she felt for the life growing inside her.

"I won't let them harm my son," Rowena stated with all her conviction.

"_Our _son," Sam corrected her, fingers nimbly pushing away a stray lock of her hair and tucking it behind her ear. "And I know you won't let them."

Sam kissed her tenderly, and it was affection and a threat rolled into one.

* * *

It wasn't a week from Sam's warning when they reached her apartment. There were movements outside her door that Rowena paid no heed. They could be nobody else but from the Resistance, more likely the moronic new recruits, not any of those that she came to know during her brief stay with them roughly two years ago.

She'd like to think that she had had acquaintances there; their resident fallen angel, for one. Dean never did warm up to her the same way Castiel did, but he recognized her talents and they had been put to good use.

Rowena knew, too, that it was Dean who first labeled her a traitor for betraying the whole Resistance for something as fickle as power.

There was a skitter outside the door, and if they think they were moving as quietly as a mouse then they should take pointers with stealth and—

Rowena didn't expect the explosion.

The hit that threw her across the room was cushioned by her duvet, though her back and leg weren't fortunate—what wasn't burned was torn by the embedded wooden splinters.

Ears ringing, Rowena scrambled past the painful movement to wrap her arms around her stomach, and with rising panic, hoped against all hope that her son was alright. _Please, please, please, let him be alright—_

They hauled her by her hair, and with an unfocused vision, she determined that she didn't recognize these men. Past them were the littered bodies of what passed as 'guards' that Crowley must have put in place.

"Hey, get the iron for the witch," said one of the men, gesturing at the other who was loading his gun with witch-killing bullets.

"Really?" Rowena drawled when she was shackled with thick chains. She was aware that she should shut up right then, but the need to keep them distracted was niggling at the back of her mind. "This won't hold me long, you know."

"Specially made just for you, sweet cheeks," said the one with a Southern twang. "Just need you to sit still while we put a bullet in your head." He waved vaguely at her and her stomach with blatant disgust. "Two abominations with one bullet."

Rowena seethed, baring her teeth at the threat to her child, struggling forcefully against her binds that pulled the lanky man who was at the other end.

"What's with you witches and demons?" muttered the person holding the gun, grasping Rowena's face. "You witches can't get it up for us normal men?"

She glared sharply at her three captors, swallowing the cry of pain when they pulled her on her knees and hit the scorched flesh.

"With that mug of yours, certainly not," Rowena spat.

A backhand connected with her cheek, splitting her lip. "I think I know what we'll give the demon Winchester as a gift: his kid carved out from his redheaded bitch."

Rowena swerved to her side when one of them went to kick her in the middle. Her shoulder received the impact whilst she cradled her stomach, practically folding her body inwards.

She whispered to herself, as if on a prayer, while they couldn't see her lips moving. _"Dico porro maxime vitiosus de maledictionem—"_

Rowena whimpered, shaking in fury and worry when a fist found her gut. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of her scream.

"—_et posuit super vos, et reliqua frater tuus—"_

One of them brandished a sharp knife, and Rowena attempted to stumble back, away from the blade that they tested first on her face and the exposed part of her neck and chest, but they held her firm on her small shoulders and burnt back.

Rowena curled further to herself. _"—quamdiu sanguis tuus est in hoc mundo."_

As quick as her eyes flashed purple was the three bodies exploding in a mess of blood, flesh, and bones.

Hollowly, Rowena let the rain of red paint her and everything else. She sat there, blood dripping from the ends of her hair as if the color of her mane was being washed off.

She thought she felt a tug from the child, and Rowena was instantly brought back to the present, making her aware of the aches all over her body and of her messy state.

Her child was safe, and in the end, it was all that mattered.

* * *

Crowley stumbled upon her firmly in place on the floor, humming a tune under her breath and rubbing her stomach fondly.

The blood already dried on her, yet Rowena couldn't find the strength to move, sticky as she was.

Crowley didn't utter a word as he crouched and assisted her up by her shoulders, careful to avoid the burns being mended by her magic. He produced a towel that almost swallowed Rowena with its size and fluffiness.

Rowena was hardly aware when she was guided under the shower, Crowley leaving her under the spray of hot water before he exited and waited outside.

Her only movement was when she curled into a ball, encircling her arms around her, shielding her child.

If Crowley heard the sobs coming from within the bathroom, he didn't check in to find out.

* * *

They moved her to one of Crowley's safe houses. It was practically a mansion in its expanse, empty and cold within, and warded to teeth against angels and hunters. There was more space to move around, and her son was particularly fond of long walks during the evenings.

As huge as the place was, Rowena noted how frequent Crowley was around. They never talked about that day, and Sam didn't visit again since he gave a warning. Crowley mentioned Sam's interest in a particular project that Rowena couldn't be bothered to stay in the loop of.

It was just as well, Rowena supposed. The rounder she grew, the more she craved for solitude.

During the day, she was either sitting down or lying on the bed with tired and swollen soles. Still, Rowena was hardly unoccupied: there was always a hex bag to make and store for future use, a modified enchantment to create, a new brand of magic to study. Unlike before, Rowena found herself satisfied to be fixed in one place.

It was solely for her own interests, she believed, except it wasn't just _her _anymore.

It was for her child.

In her seventh month, Rowena was hesitant to make a single decision that might topple over the structure of the barricade that she put in place.

The name to give her son.

Rowena bit her lip, torn. To name her child would strengthen his hold over her, and the unborn babe was already her weakness, name or no name.

But, oh, there was a name that was starting to play in her mind.

For the first time in months, a genuine smile graced Rowena's lips.

* * *

The experience wasn't comparable to when she bore Fergus, but it surprised her that it took her eight months to start likening the feeling to her first pregnancy.

Only there was more fear this time around, a kind of anxiousness so great that it could overwhelm first-time mothers.

The parentage of the child made the fear worse. Oh, she knew what would happen once the child was born, knew the ways Sam would twist her son's nature to his liking, but she knew, too, that she could put a stopgap against the influence of the child's father.

What she was concerned about was the possibility that this particular childbirth might decide to end her permanently.

Not that Rowena would let childbirth get to her in a crucial moment, but the possibility yet remained, leaning towards the high chance.

Her magic could undeniably conquer, but so could Death, existing above her on a higher plane, more capricious and primordial.

What if Death decided to collect her after four centuries of narrowly escaping it?

There was too much uncertainty and so little time.

* * *

Death, the fickle thing, began making rounds in the form of a prophecy.

A seer read the future of Sam Winchester and saw only desolation and his death at the hands of his own son.

Nobody else knew of the said prophecy aside from the seer who offered their service to the Boyking in exchange for their life.

It wasn't difficult for the Boyking to come to a conclusion.

* * *

The rain was pelting against the windows when Rowena woke, not from the sound of thunder but from the restlessness of her son.

Rowena stood groggily with a frown and padded out of the room.

Upon gingerly descending the steps, she discovered that there was not a single demon around. She was met with complete silence from within, and while the storm raged on outside, alarm bells started to ring in her head.

Something was very, very wrong.

Rowena was immediately on high alert, taking quiet steps back to her room, where her tools were and her barriers the strongest.

"Rowena."

Sam's voice came as clear as the thunder and shaking Rowena to the core like a bolt of lightning.

She instantly knew what was wrong.

Rowena raised her guard in anger, and before she could click her fingers, the Boyking snapped her neck with a simple gesture.

* * *

Rowena shot up from the bed, wide awake and panting as she touched her neck.

It was a nightmare, but for some reason, it felt real. Like it happened. Like it _would _happen.

Rowena was met with the silence indoors and the raging storm outside.

She swallowed.

If she exited the room, she was sure—no, she _knew_ what would happen.

Rowena hurriedly pulled out a wooden chest under the bed, grabbing the silver knife and tucking it by her hip. She murmured a quick enchantment for the locks and windows and set up a wide demon trap between the door and her.

She worked swiftly under a couple of minutes, her child cooperating as if he understood the severity of the situation and the press for time. For all she knew, it was also him who showed her what would happen in the next few minutes if she had stupidly wandered outside her safe space.

Rowena allowed her magic to flow within the room, uncompressed and ready to eliminate, once the doorknob rattled until it ominously stopped to give way to the numerous heavy thudding against the sturdy wooden door.

A crackle of magic sparked between her fingers, and Rowena was ready when the door broke down. Three demon henchmen that she didn't recognize came barreling in, eyes clouded with obsidian and cruel glee upon finding her seemingly defenseless.

"The king is asking for you, woman. Might want to come quietly. It'll hurt less," said one, his stance and demeanor all but saying there wouldn't be any quiet if Rowena came with them.

"And he can't do that himself?" she asked haughtily, hand poised to send these unremarkable demons flying. "Some man he is, letting his pregnant wife go to him."

The demon snickered. "His bitch doesn't get to order the king around."

Ironic, now that Rowena thought about it, that demons possessed a concept of loyalty, or at least a semblance of it. But with the hierarchy and class division Hell has, fealty must have been often equated with immense subservience.

Faintly, Rowena wondered where Crowley stood. Would she have to kill him as well? She wasn't deluded to think they were allies after the decency they developed towards each other; they were on the same side before, probably, but now…

The demons knew better than to cross the threshold of the protection laid within the room, and Rowena made the decision for them, sweeping past the two without so much of a murmur of Latin that purged them out of their meatsuits. By the time they were done hurling out their true form in disgusting dark sludge, Rowena was already walking out, barefooted, and meeting head-on the savages Sam sent to her.

And, really, if he was looking for a job well-done, he should have come here himself.

It was rare that Rowena would go all out, and never did she allow herself to meet opponents this many without so much of a plan ahead. But letting her magic squeeze the life out of the last of Sam's mewling cravens, Rowena felt the heady satisfaction of another successful kill and the boiling anger upon the realization that it has come to this, to her fighting for her and her son's life recklessly and barbarically.

Rowena wanted nothing but to kill Sam Winchester with her bare hands and be done with it for good.

"That's enough," Crowley said, appearing by the bottom of the stairs. "He's dead, Rowena. That's enough."

Rowena all but growled with inexplicably renewed ferociousness and strength. "Here to kill me as well?"

Crowley wisely remained on the spot, shaking his head and eyeing the scattered bodies of the empty meatsuits. "Even if I am, it'll be stupid to try otherwise."

She believed that. She believed Crowley, odd as it might sound to her ears. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why is your bloody king after me?"

"It's not you, per se, but the kid," he said tersely. "I heard rumors that someone had read the king's fate and told him that he's bound to die at the hands of his son. And this," he gestured vaguely around the mess, "This is how the sycophants acted with initiative to please the Boyking and earn the promise of a reward."

Rowena has no words for the revelation. It was too late now for anything else other than fight or flight.

"More will come soon, and I suggest that you take the exit route in the basement," Crowley spoke once more.

"I don't care, bring them here," she seethed.

"No doubt you can handle them, woman, but you know you can't fight them forever."

At the back of that strong desire for revenge and the flowing adrenaline that continuously surged was the pragmatic side of her that agreed with Crowley. Rowena hated that he was right; she hated that her best chance now was to flee.

Fists clenched tightly on her sides, Rowena stormed to the direction opposite of the front door. She stopped, however, to turn around and say:

"Run away with me."

For once, she saw a flash of change cross Crowley's face; quick to come and go but it had been there. "I can't."

"You don't like to serve him, your _Boyking_. You don't owe him your allegiance."

"And who says I don't?" Crowley challenged.

"I had my suspicion the moment you stopped me from drinking demon blood, and the fact that you're letting me escape now only proves it."

"And because of those, you think you know me already." He scoffed. "You're wasting your time here when you should be running away."

"And I'm asking you to come with me," she reiterated. "You live for servitude? Fine. I have your bloody king's son in me. You can serve him once he's born."

Crowley let out a derisive laugh. "There's only one person I serve that I will never betray: myself. So before you can think that you can convince me to jump ship easily, well, don't make me regret letting you go. You owe me your life, Rowena, you and your son. I hope you don't forget that."

Rowena should have killed him right there and then. Later, perhaps, when she was done feeling insulted and shunned all over again.

"I'm not surprised that your mother abandoned such a cowardly son like you."

Rowena counted it as victory when she left with the last word.

* * *

When Rowena transported herself to the off the map, nondescript cottage she reserved for a worst-case scenario situation, she was shivering, wet, and with mud staining her feet.

Staring at the dilapidated walls and ceiling, she came to the conclusion that she fitted exactly here, destitute and just as abandoned.

But this was hers, and when given some time, she could live here, give birth to her son by her lonesome self, and raise the boy on her own. Although she had never gotten around to fixing the place to her liking, she would this time.

_And what then?_ came the thought, unbidden. _Do you expect him to give up looking for you?_

No, of course not. This was her—_their_ life now, running away and hoping that Sam wouldn't catch up.

It was funny how she had willingly run towards him in the beginning, Rowena thought bitterly.

For a woman who lived for almost half a millennium, she never learned to avoid a string of terrible decisions.

_You brought this to yourself._

* * *

Rowena dreamed of a familiar place.

She was in Sioux Falls, in the headquarters of the Resistance. There was their leader and his known right-hand man slumped over a table with their pensive, brooding shoulders. Serious men, these two were, and it was as if nothing had changed the last time Rowena last saw them aside from their weary faces with more lines around the eyes.

If one was to look at Dean without knowing him, nobody would have made the connection that he and Sam were brothers. If anything, Castiel fitted the category more…

Or not, she thought wryly when she witnessed them share a chaste kiss. Well, they had gotten the old sexual tension out of the way, apparently.

Rowena didn't understand why it was Dean and Castiel that appeared in her dream, but her chest gave a twist at the two men who used to hold the belief that she was capable of redemption. Rowena betrayed these good men, and she would forever bear that regret.

"What do we do about her?" she heard Castiel speak, imploring. "You know that it won't be long before he finds her."

It takes only a few seconds to guess that the fallen angel was talking about her. Rowena was immediately intrigued.

"I know," Dean said, resigned. "And if Sam wants her dead, he'll make sure of it." She was taken aback at Dean's certainty—wasn't he notorious for being blind when it came to his brother that he desperately wanted to return? "Jesus, Cas, he wants to kill my nephew. _His_ kid."

"All the more reason for us to find her first," Cas said. "We should keep her and her son safe."

"I would if I could, Cas. You know that." Dean looked torn. "That kid she bears, he's family, and it's not his fault that his father is Sam. But think what will happen to him, too, if I bring him and his mother here. It'll be just another trouble for the kid once everyone finds out who he is, and it's like letting the boy grow surrounded by hate. I won't put him through that, Cas."

The dream ended abruptly, pulling her back to consciousness. She groaned, rubbing her stomach when it ached at her sudden movement.

When Rowena woke, the thin sleeping gown was already dry on her skin, and her hair was sticking out to odd places. Quite frankly, she was surprised she managed to fall asleep and dream. Must be the exhaustion.

Except, it wasn't a dream at all, was it? The first one was less than twenty-four hours ago, and that had been a warning. And this one with Castiel and Dean…

It hadn't been a dream in so much as a vision showed to her, happening somewhere or already did. The fact remained that they wanted to help her and her son.

She could take refuge there with them, and while she understood Dean's concern, she knew he could handle his own people. Only he and Castiel mattered in that ragtag group of his. They would protect her and her son, and Rowena would take care of the rest, of the scorn and loathing they would throw her way.

Rowena was hit with shame and guilt.

She has no right to return there anymore. She has no right to put Dean and Castiel in danger.

Rowena wrapped her arms around her. "It'll be just the two of us from now on," she murmured, splaying her palms above her bump. "It'll be just the two of us."

And it was fine.

* * *

"_Wings of Titania, bear mine eyes aloft as I bid thee…"_

Sam's underlings were scattered in all directions sent to look for her. Rowena actually admired how organized they were on their search. Say what you will about Sam Winchester, but when it came to setting his minions straight, he knew exactly what he was doing.

Sam was born to lead the demons, and it showed.

She took notice, however, of how most of his troops were flocking in a specific area in Kansas where Crowley and his men were also present. The location wasn't far from where the bunker was, in an open field where demons came in and went, milling about as if addressing a more pressing concern than the missing pregnant wife of their king.

Perhaps they were correct.

Rowena watched, fascinated at the glowing vertical line that emanated a soft orange hue. It existed like it belonged in the same space of this world when judging by the single look and feel of it said that it was unnatural, in a sense that was beyond what she perceived as normal.

She could hear them equally befuddled as to what it was. They called it a tear in space, and they have their share of theories as to where it led.

Rowena blinked, roused from the astral projection by her son's restlessness. She sat heavily back on the chair, trying to communicate with the child in whatever way possible.

"You don't happen to know what that is, do you?" she asked idly, massaging her stomach.

A fresh round of weariness seeped in her bones after the use of her magic, stress of the day, the roughly two hours of sleep, and the lack of sustenance.

Rowena let herself be lulled back to sleep, thirsty and hungry.

* * *

She woke to the sound of giggling.

Hovering above her was a handsome little boy with unruly copper hair and brown eyes that lit up excitedly when she blinked awake.

Perplexed, Rowena sat up from… the grass? Looking around, she found herself outdoors, pleasantly basking underneath the late afternoon sun.

"We're back in your home. It's pretty here," said the boy with a nod to their surroundings. He extended a hand to her like a proper gentleman. "Up you go. We have to take a walk."

Rowena allowed herself to be led away, though she has no idea what he meant by 'home'. As far as she knew, she never had one.

And how old and who was this boy? She didn't remember any kid with that face. He was a bonny lad with hair a few shades close to hers, and his eyes, well, at first glance she thought they were like _his_ when they weren't dark but… no, not really. The boy has kind eyes and that wide-eyed innocence and wonder of childhood.

He grinned up at her toothily like he understood what was in her mind, and Rowena's breath hitched.

"Hi, mum."

"Am I dreaming again?"

The boy—_her_ boy shook his head. "Of course not. Besides, you already know that what I showed you were not dreams."

"Warnings, yes, but not like this." She swallowed. "Or are you telling me that this is a bad omen as well?"

"No, silly mum." He squeezed her hand tight with his little fingers. "We're inside your mind. We're sharing while I'm not out there yet."

Rowena gingerly knelt in front of him, and with his face cradled on her hands this close, the claim was undeniable. It was him. Her son. And he's with her inside her head, a dark and evil place where no child should be.

"It's not," the boy said with something akin to pity as he touched her cheeks. He knew what she was thinking then. "I think it's nice here. When I grow up, I'll visit Scotland with you, and you have to tell me where you played, and we'll visit the places you explored."

"Och, _a cuisle_." She pulled the kid in a tight embrace, weeping against the hair of her boy. "Of course. Of course. Anything you say."

"Don't cry, mum. I still have to tell you lots of things. After, you can cry," he said, patting the side of her head. "I wouldn't mind then."

Rowena had to chuckle with the way her son spoke. "What is it?"

"Oh, the rift, for one thing," he said, and at her confused frown, added, "The tear in space that I showed you earlier."

Her back straightened. "Then you do know what that is."

"It's a gate to another place, far away from here. Another world."

"And you showed me that because—" Realization dawned on her. "You wanted us to go there, to the other world."

"Because the people from the other side will help us, mum."

Rowena bit her lip. "You don't know that. Sa—_He _is already studying it. He could have already sent some of his minions to the other side."

"He hasn't. The gate is not stable. Not for another two days. It's not yet completed by the person who made it. He's strong, stronger than my father, you, and what I'll become in the future. There's possibly no one as strong as him. He and his family can help us."

"How do you know that, _a cuisle_? What makes you so sure that the world out there is not worse than this one we're living in?"

Her boy smiled at her serenely, tempering her worries and fears. "Because I saw them, mum. The people who can help us on the other side. They're good people. In turn, we have to help them because they're currently fighting a good cause."

"I won't send us both in the middle of a battle," Rowena stated determinedly.

It was possibly a grave mistake to think that he would inherit her sense of self-preservation.

"If we don't help them, mum, it won't be just my father that you have to worry about," he said grimly. "Everything else will collapse, including this world and the other worlds aside from the one on the other side. Other versions of us will die not knowing how and why. I don't want them to die, mum."

"You can't save everyone, _a cuisle_," Rowena said softly. He was strong, but he was still a child through and through.

"Then at least let me save you, mum," he said. "Let us get out of this world and live where we won't have to look past our shoulders."

"That's what I want as well, darling boy, but I can't risk our safety with the unknown and uncharted. Please understand that I only want to keep you safe not only from your father and his demons."

"I know, mum." He was so full of understanding, this kid. "But I won't call it unknown. You'll find that there will be some familiar faces there. Like Uncle Dean and Uncle Cas. Things are different in their side than ours. The most important one is that the version of my father there is not a demon, nor is he drinking demon blood. He's a human hunter like his brother, and they've been hunting together for years. They're still family there despite their ups and downs. They saved the world with Castiel numerous times and the world doesn't even know. If you can see past the familiar face of Sam Winchester, you'll like him, mum, because he's what my father could have been."

Rowena's mind was reeling with all this knowledge. She appreciated that her boy was being upfront, and while she didn't even want to consider what he was telling him, she could only sigh in surrender. Her boy was truly well and her weakness.

"It's my only choice, isn't it?" she whispered.

"Yeah," he agreed, a little sadly. "You've run for a long time, mum, and you've been hurt enough. The next time I see you, I'd rather see you happy and safe."

She pulled him back, kissing his head. "When I wake, will I remember?" she asked against his forehead.

"No," he said honestly, and her heart ached. "But when it all goes well, it won't be long until you can see and hold me for real, and once I open my eyes, I want you to be the first person I see."

He beamed at her with a smile that was brighter than the sun and the loveliest sight Rowena had ever seen.

"I love you, mum."

* * *

Rowena woke to the dim interior of the cottage illuminated only by the thin rays of the new day's sunlight that went through the gaps between the walls.

She sat up with eyes dried with tears, with a new set of determination and an ingenious plan in mind.

"I love you too, Kailen," she whispered, knowing deep inside that it was the right thing to say.

With no small amount of fondness, she stroked her stomach and set to work.

* * *

**tbc**

* * *

"_Dico porro maxime vitiosus de maledictionem, et posuit super vos, et reliqua frater tuus est, quamdiu sanguis tuus est in hoc mundo." — _I call forth the most vicious of curses and be put upon you and the rest of your kin for as long as your blood exists in this world.


	2. The Boy

The first thing that he saw was a throne.

A man was standing by it, his back turned to Sam, but he knew in his bones who it was.

"Do you like it?" the man asked without turning.

For a moment, Sam thought he was the one being addressed, before a feminine voice spoke, and Sam recognized the voice despite not hearing it for a long time.

"I love it," Ruby said as she stepped from the shadows and walked deliberately up the throne towards the man. "It suits you, being a leader. Being a king."

It was no longer surprising to find Sam's own face on the man when he turned to hold Ruby by her slim waist and caressed her face. This Sam looked young, give or take a few years after he first met Ruby in this particular meatsuit of hers. This Sam touched Ruby the same way Sam did when he let her manipulate him and thought that he loved her, a demon through and through who turned out to be loyal to Lilith and Lucifer since the very beginning.

"It does," the young Sam agreed, his lips finding her jaw and mouthing against Ruby's neck and biting. Sam felt nauseous watching. "But a king needs a queen."

The younger Sam drew back from Ruby's neck with the gleam of demon blood that trickled down his chin. Ruby's eyes shone with anticipation, clouded not with worry for the torn skin on her neck but rather with lust and the raw thirst for power that this Sam was about to share with her. Sam didn't get to know what Ruby's goal was after Lucifer was freed, though he supposed she would like the same thing: to rule beside the King of Hell.

"I accept," Ruby said breathlessly, reverently, pressed against the younger Sam tightly. "I wish to be your queen, your majesty. My king. My Sa—"

Sam stared in shock at the knife—_Ruby_'s knife—that protruded from her neck. She fell limp on the floor with plain shock that Sam, _this_ Sam that she painstakingly molded and encouraged the darkness within, killed her with his own hands.

It wasn't long until a demon came in without announcing itself and waited for an order.

"I would have mourned you. Before," the young Sam murmured as he gazed vacantly at the corpse. He wiped the demon blood from his lips. "Feed her to the dogs."

The demon lackey followed the command wordlessly and dragged Ruby by her foot, her meatsuit's blood painting a red trail on the way out.

"You would have done the same," the younger Sam said, seemingly to no one as he wiped Ruby's knife clean. "If you were in my position, you would savor it because it would be a long time before you could feel something else again."

His eyes overtaken by obsidian met Sam's directly, and it occurred to Sam that the other him was looking _at _him as if he could see him in the dream or whatever vision this was.

"Of course I can see you, Sam."

* * *

Sam gasped awake.

Dazedly, he sat up and rubbed his face and his throbbing shoulder. His bed and hair were soaked with sweat, an unusual side effect that he did not have in his prior odd dreams—

But those weren't dreams at all, were they? At least, the most recent one wasn't.

_He_ talked to him. _He _could see him.

This evil, demon blood addict version of him _knew _Sam was there, watching. Sam has no explanation other than it was an alternate him, possibly connected with the other demonized Sam who he saw snapped Dean's neck with his psychic abilities.

And Sam supposed that it said a lot about him if such a version of him existed in a different world. That could have been him if he hadn't pulled himself from that particularly dark phase of his life.

In a different outcome, darkness had fully consumed him.

Sam reached for his phone. 1:14 AM. Great. Just… great.

He didn't understand what the dreams meant. He didn't know what was going on with him, his mind, and this bullet wound from shooting Chuck. Sam wished someone could explain or at least share a theory.

He scrolled through the messages he sent Cas. No reply, as usual. Not that Sam told him through texts about the dreams, but it would lessen Sam's worry for him if Cas could at least send back a word or two. Sam understood that Cas needed space and time for himself. He might have killed Belphegor, a random demon with his own agenda, but to Cas it was his son's body that he smited.

Sam's thumb brought him to the other message threads and—

He hovered over the long message thread that he used to have with Rowena.

He should have turned the device off as soon as possible because, well, here Sam was again, stupidly backtracking to their exchange, often disjointed and random that it became distinct. For all her claims of beauty sleep, she never failed to reply in the middle of the night, most especially when Sam would talk of his nightmares of Lucifer that never truly left him even after the Devil's death. Sam had been comfortable to share those to her because she had done the same, and it had been their own safe space, the late-night conversations of facts, anecdotes, and spells for these and that in order to forget.

And, yeah, they've really grown fond of each other, haven't they?

_Remind me to show you how to make an itching hex. Might teach your brother not to use your toothbrush for his armpits. Eugh._

Sam had imagined the disgusted, scrunched up nose that she typically did. Sam wouldn't be caught saying it was adorable because it was Rowena and she wasn't supposed to be called adorable, but in some part of Sam's mind, he did, maybe once… twice.

He smiled wanly. In the end, she never did get to teach him how to make that itching hex. It was the last text he received from her and there wouldn't be any in the future.

Because Sam just killed the only person who could have known and understood him fully.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, willing his mind not to go there again. It was bad enough that his dreams were getting worse; the memory of him killing Rowena was the last thing he wanted to play in his mind repeatedly.

Though, what was a terrible nightmare compared to the harsh reality?

* * *

He was back, not in the very same dream but similar in a way that it was still the Boyking version of him that he was seeing.

The Boyking was a little older than the previous, his features sharper and without a trace of that softness and wonder that could be attributed to youth. It must have been only a few years since the Boyking killed Ruby but Sam could hardly recognize his face. He looked older than Sam when he was around that age.

It should have been disorienting for Sam to see fast-paced visions and flashes of events that revolved around the Boyking: how he organized Hell with a hierarchy of his own making and how he remade Hell itself and set up a base of operation topside with the help of none other than Crowley. The Boyking trusted Crowley as his right-hand man and an advisor that he actually listened to. This version of Crowley was just as self-serving as the Crowley Sam used to butt heads with before all that human blood, though this Crowley possessed the same semblance of loyalty to a higher power that knew his value. The Boyking trusted Crowley, trusted him to take care of Dean and his group of hunters who stood in opposition.

It made sense now, Sam supposed, as to why the first dream of this version of him was about killing Dean.

Sam drifted through the years as if watching a documentary on the life of someone who looked like him and the people he knew, and it took a lot to convince himself that this Boyking wasn't _him _and nor the horrendous acts he committed were _his_. And while in another distant world it came down to him and Dean against each other, Sam was holding on the fact that it would _never _happen to the two of them. That at least he was sure of.

Sam walked through his dream and hid in the shadows, not even out of fear of the Boyking seeing him again but for the sake of detachment and the reminder that he wasn't part of this alternate world.

It didn't have Lucifer nor the presence of Chuck, but it has something worse: an evil _him_. So long as he has these dreams, Sam has to subject himself to watching this Boyking stray further away from his human nature and forget what he used to stand and cared for.

The true horror was that Sam could have been in the same transition without the influence of Ruby or Lilith or Azazel or Lucifer. This Sam was just as any of his demons who derived pleasure in inflicting pain, who could kill an innocent mercilessly, who could use and hurt a friend and a family without feeling a semblance of guilt—

"Is that what you think of me?"

Sam whirled around to the voice. He shook his head; in the playing dream, the Boyking was talking to Crowley, and yet there was another Boyking standing there and looking at Sam curiously. "You can see me? How is this possible?"

"Did it ever occur to you that this goes two ways?" The Boyking idly sauntered to where Sam was, much to his wariness. "Relax, Sam. I'm only here to ask if you're enjoying the show so far. After all, you've been around often recently."

Sam took a cautious step back. He was ready to defend himself if ever, though he didn't know what good it would do him here. Could he be hurt? Could he even hurt this Boyking if they were both in a dream? "Not my intention," he said tightly.

The Boyking raised an eyebrow. "Oh? So you've only discovered dream walking then? Fascinating," he commented without sincerity in his tone. "To be honest with you, I only discovered that I could do it as well the first time I sensed you. Do you remember? That was when I killed Ruby. It was years ago for me, but maybe for you, it was only last week or last night."

Sam didn't deign to give him an answer.

The Boyking hummed thoughtfully. "This explains why I keep sensing your fleeting presence throughout the years. It must be like flashes to you, like watching a movie in fast forward." Sam's wince confirmed the Boyking's suspicion. "You haven't seen it all yet, Sam, but here you are already judging my… evilness."

Sam was uncertain about this. Where was the Boyking going with this? Was he about to kill Sam? Was he intrigued where Sam came from and was willing to force the answers out of him despite not knowing himself how and why this was all happening?

Or perhaps both in reverse order.

"You think too loudly," the Boyking said amusedly. "But, yes, I am curious where you came from."

Sam swallowed. "You can read my mind?" The situation was slowly but surely becoming dangerous for Sam. He has to wake now. Fast.

"I do," the other replied, and for a moment he gave Sam a look that was akin to pity; Sam wasn't fooled. "As I said, you think too loudly, and dreams are—what do you call it? Free space, I believe. There are no rules here, Sam. You're either stronger or weaker as you see fit." He seemed wistful for a split-second. "You should keep a dreamwalker to your side if you ever met one. Useful and powerful creatures, you know."

"Is it you who keeps bringing me here and showing me this… this thing you called life?" It wasn't a good idea to insult the Boyking, but Sam couldn't keep the hatred from his voice. "Are you messing with my mind out of entertainment? Just because you can?"

"I never said I'm the one who brought you here." The Boyking's eyes glinted in warning. "I'm afraid we're both clueless in that regard." He gestured vaguely with their surroundings that shifted to a scene where the Boyking was in his throne and listening to a proposal by some nondescript demon. "Don't you like it, though? Seeing yourself on top of Hell's food chain and everyone ready to bow and kiss your feet at your command."

"You killed Dean! You killed your own brother and Bobby and Jody and your friends!" Sam gritted his teeth. "Why would I even like to be in your position?"

The Boyking was hardly bothered by Sam's anger and instead perked in interest at what Sam said. "I killed Dean, huh?" He inclined his head as if committing the statement to memory. "So you've seen a glimpse of my future as well."

Sam boiled with fury at this Boyking and himself. He would rather not learn that he was the one who gave the idea to this Sam that he would kill his brother who only wanted him back.

"As for Dean, he's a lost cause, Sam. He'll never understand what I am now. He doesn't understand that I'm no longer the Sammy that he grew up with," the Boyking murmured. "I assume then that in your world you and your Dean are on good terms."

_Your world_. The Boyking knew who Sam was, it seemed, or at least has an idea where he came from. Sam refused to give any indication the accuracy.

"I already have my suspicions the first couple of times you appeared. Few the dreamwalkers might be, they know a lot about their trade. I asked for their knowledge, and they gave." He studied Sam. "At your lack of surprise, I think you're already familiar with alternate realities."

"And if I am?" Sam taunted. "Are you going to make it Hell for me from now on whenever I sleep?"

He considered Sam briefly before turning away. "I'm not going to justify myself after you see who I am, though if it bothers you too much, I do have a reason for those."

Sam shook his head. "There is no valid reason for those acts. You're a monster, and I loathe to think that I could have been you."

"Is that what you keep telling yourself when you look in the mirror? That you have the potential to be worse but decided not to?" the Boyking shot back bluntly with a smile playing on his lips. "Is that how you make yourself feel better, Sam, when you kill someone you think deserves it? Because you're a hunter, aren't you? You and Dean. And tell me, in that hunting career with your brother, did you save all of them? Don't even make the mistake of claiming you'd rather undergo the long and tedious process of exorcising a demon out of a poor human instead of going straight for the killing of both."

Sam clenched his jaw. He didn't want to rise to the bait, but…

"Figures," the Boyking said. "I don't judge you for being the hypocrite that you are. We are all hypocrites, one way or another."

_Hypocrite. _

Sam didn't have the right words to say against that.

Because a part of him was well aware that it was the truth.

"You're lucky, Sam, to still get that kind of feeling. It doesn't matter if it's negative and that it goes against your principles. You have no idea how fortunate you are to possess that," the Boyking continued. "Deny it all you want, but when it's gone and you can feel nothing, you'll take whatever to _feel _just a little bit. You'll resort to torture and murder to get satisfaction, commit the most heinous sins of the flesh to remember what the sense of gratification feels like, inflict pain to yourself and to those you used to love to feel agony—"

"No," Sam interrupted hoarsely. "You can't tell me that it's as simple as you not being able to feel that you're doing this."

"Except it's not simple at all, Sam," said the Boyking. "You say that because you don't know. I cannot describe it fully." A hand of his trailed to his own chest. "I'd say it's like losing your soul bit by bit or your soul being corrupted gradually but even those are more preferable than the cold dark pit of nothing in here. You'll never understand unless you're in my position, Sam."

_You would savor it because it would be a long time before you could feel something else again._

Sam recalled what the Boyking said in a prior dream Sam had been.

A flicker of something appeared in the Boyking's eyes. "You remember."

"What do you mean by that?" Sam dared to ask, his shoulders squared and tense. His instincts kept insisting danger, but escaping from this dream seemed rather useless now without getting a clear and definite answer.

The Boyking's gaze flickered to his right where a different scene played. The Boyking in the memory closely resembled the one Sam was speaking with, and Sam watched it all unfold.

It was again in the throne room, the Boyking with another demon lackey when the heavy double doors opened and came in two other demons who brought in a struggling person in chains and a dirtied purple dress.

When the cover was lifted from the prisoner's face, out tumbled the red locks of hair and a painfully familiar face.

Sam's breath hitched.

"My King, we caught the witch Rowena of the Resistance," said the demon on the left. "By your leave, we'll deal with her however you deem fit."

The Boyking on the throne lifted a hand, his eyes never leaving Rowena once her face was revealed. He stood, stepping down in front of her while she scowled at him defiantly despite her shut lips.

"I'll take this matter in my own hands. Leave," he commanded.

The building dread that Sam felt reached its peak when Rowena was left with the Boyking, alone, bound in iron, and her mouth shut. He approached Rowena with careful steps and on his hand was a serrated knife that wasn't unlike Ruby's.

And Sam knew where this would lead—it would be the same all over again. He killing Rowena, only this time it would be a cruel act, and Sam would be a spectator, helpless to stop it.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see it again and wanting to stop the barrage of images that came flooding back: his hands on the knife as stabbed her in the abdomen, the way she held him and thanked him for the deed because she knew it wouldn't be easy for him and the memory of him killing her would be forever burned in his mind, plaguing him not only in his sleep but also in his waking moments—

"Stop!" Sam yelled.

A look of surprise passed on the Boyking's features when a shot of tremor shook the dream space he and Sam shared. His eyes narrowed on Sam while the scene went on in the background, undisturbed.

"As you wish, Sam."

Sam was powerless when the Boyking pushed him back to what seemed an abyss on the ground that wasn't there originally.

And he was falling on the void… falling… and falling…

* * *

Sam shot up on the bed, panting in terror and bathing in his own sweat.

He took a moment to calm his racing heartbeat, and blearily, he reached out to the alarm blaring like a siren.

The quietness and stillness that followed were disconcerting, almost deafening, though they were not as overwhelming as the heaviness of guilt that was eating in his chest.

If he broke down in a dry, choking sob, at least no one else was around to hear it.

* * *

Dean stared at the dubious article with a frown and decided to save it for later to show to Sam.

Mountain lion, the report said, but c'mon; two victims so far and it reeked of supernatural already. Well, more like his 'supernatural radar' tingling, but he was on the job for years now and his instincts were tried and tested.

Dean was done with his lukewarm coffee by the time he heard Sam's steps approaching the kitchen. It was eight in the morning, and Sam was a little late than his usual hour in the last few weeks. Dean took it as good news that Sam was at least taking back his lost sleep.

Or not.

The Sam that came in was haggard, a little worse for wear, and with eyes bloodshot like he did not sleep at all.

"Sam," Dean began.

Sam waved a hand dismissively. "I'm fine, Dean," he said weakly, replying to some unspoken question. "Just… I just need a coffee and a shower."

And here Dean thought that Sam was getting a bit better, moving on slowly but steadily. Apparently, Dean was wrong, and he had to stomp down on the faint glimmer of hope that Sam was starting to be okay.

Sometimes he wished he was good with processing his _own_ emotions just so he could handle those from the people who mattered the most. He could take care of Sam better that way and… and Dean wouldn't have to let Cas leave.

"Sam, talk to me," he said. "I'll listen."

The smile that Sam sent him probably meant as an assurance that he would be fine but to Dean, it came across feeble and bitter and so, so miserable.

"I know," Sam said. "But maybe when I'm ready."

Sam retreated, presumably back to his room, leaving his brother standing alone in the kitchen.

Dean was an idiot, and he was angry at himself for being an idiot and useless in this matter.

* * *

Sam was true to his word—a coffee and a shower were enough to pull him out of his messy state.

On the outside, at least.

He and Dean didn't need the additional baggage of Sam's weird dreams.

As for the dreams, well.

They've stopped. They've stopped, and Sam didn't know how it happened.

He had been afraid to fall asleep the following evening of dreaming of the Boyking about to kill Rowena, until he had eventually fallen asleep for three hours without knowing it, and he had been surprised when he woke to the sound of his alarm. No dream, no anything.

He approached his evening rests tentatively in the next three days; still no dreams. By the fourth day, he allowed himself to relax and got full eight hours without any interruption.

Sam didn't know what to do with the ensuing silence of his sleep. Make no mistake—he was glad that he was able to get rid of his terrible dreams, and he'd rather not see them ever again.

Though was it truly just it? Just because he wanted them to stop, would they truly stop?

Sam knew his rotten luck with these kinds of encounters, which was why he considered the dreamless nights as the calm before the storm.

As to how big a storm, he didn't know.

Researching what he could find proved to be a useful distraction. The bunker was scarce in its books about dreamwalkers, and the minimal that they have were inconsistent lore at best. The Boyking mentioned that he consulted dreamwalkers about their abilities, and Sam could do the same, except the dreamwalkers he knew were dead and he doubted he could find another close and soon.

Actually, there was one.

Sam scratched the idea. The Alternate Kaia was still around in this universe, but she explicitly told them that the next time she was called, it was to return her spear that they had promised her they would return intact. That very same spear was already destroyed by the Alternate Michael, and Sam didn't want to be the sole bearer of bad news.

He sighed. Dreamwalkers were a dead end.

Sam wasn't even sure how _he_ could dreamwalk. As far as he knew, he wasn't like Kaia or her Alternate from the Bad Place. He did recall, however, a distinct detail in the couple of times he traversed his dreams.

Absently, his hand crept up to the bullet wound that seemed unable to heal properly. It would ache after the dreams, and it had been painful after his lengthy encounter with the Boyking.

Could it be Chuck showing him about the Boyking? Highly likely, but Sam didn't want to think that Chuck was not done with them yet, that for some twisted reason, Chuck would rather show Sam that he could pit him and his brother against each other.

The more Sam looked for answers, the more questions sprung up.

* * *

Sam dreamed the next evening, slumped to a chair in a library with the pages of an old volume opened halfway.

It was similar to waking, he thought, only he woke to a different place, and Sam felt himself being _there_, not like some kind of an outsider who could only watch.

He touched the ground that he was lying on, and the grass curled on his fingers, the bits of soil stuck on his palm. There was an earthy smell that hit his nose when a cool breeze swept past him.

Sam took the time to stop and simply observe. For a dream, this was vivid, more tactile than his dreams that concerned the Boyking.

He didn't know whether to take it as a good thing.

"Hello."

Sam turned slowly to the childish voice behind him and was met with a toothy grin of a boy who must be five or six by estimation. His defenses lowered, and he found himself genuinely smiling back.

"Hello."

The boy eagerly sat beside Sam and imitated the way his legs folded. He merely watched Sam for a second and looked ahead as if in a search.

"Look there," the boy said with a pointed finger at a distance. "There are eating cows over there. Did you know that I'm friends with them now?"

Sam squinted his eyes at the spot the boy was pointing at, and indeed there were two brown animals grazing there. The kid said they were cows, but it was the first time Sam saw cows with long front hair. Cows with bangs, something Dean would crack over. Sam wasn't sure what to do with the information.

"Do you want to see them up close?" the boy asked, and he was quickly on his feet, giddy for Sam to agree.

Sam didn't feel like moving, actually, but he felt bad refusing the honest request. "Sure. Lead the way."

The boy walked ahead of Sam, excited to introduce him to his cow friends. Sam did not even know who this kid was, and he was trying to figure out who he could be.

A young version of him, perhaps? At this rate, he wouldn't be surprised anymore. But, no, it wasn't a kid Sam, not with that curly ginger hair.

Sam took a good look at the surroundings. He could only see a sea of green that extended as far as the eyes could see, some farmhouses here and there, and that was it. He wondered if there were people in those houses.

"What is this place?" he mused aloud. It wasn't a familiar location. He wasn't even sure he was in the US. Countryside, maybe, yet there was something fictitious in the place, like a cutout from a farm brochure. He noticed that the boy stopped walking when he heard Sam's question. Sam carefully asked, "Did you create this place?"

"Create?" the boy repeated, brows furrowed in deep thought. He looked adorable, Sam thought fondly. "I don't know what you mean exactly, mister. I borrowed the place from my Mom. It's nice here so I made it my dream space!"

"Dream space?"

The boy nodded proudly. "Un! That's what my friends said. This is a place called Scotland. My Mom grew up here. I don't know which house she lived in, but it's one of those we passed by."

"Your mom is Scottish, huh?" At the boy's nod of affirmation, Sam smiled wanly. "I knew a friend who lived in Scotland too. She had a weird accent."

"My Mom too! I think everyone in Scotland has it."

"But you don't."

"I don't know yet if I'll have my Mom's accent, mister, and I won't find it out in a few years," the boy said. Sam knew the kid didn't intend to make it sound cryptic, but it was, nonetheless. "Oh, we're near Jack and Billie. Quick, mister!"

The kid rushed ahead of Sam and towards his 'friends', and Sam found himself stopping.

The names were simply coincidences, weren't they?

Alright, it was ridiculous to think otherwise—the names Jack and Billie were rather common names, after all—but the timing, the mystery of this boy's identity, and the general oddness of this certain dream were too big to ignore and chalk up to coincidences.

The boy introduced the left cow as Jack. He said that it was a male and the other a female that he named Billie.

"I never asked," Sam said carefully, gently. "But what about you, what's your name?"

"I'm Kailen, mister," the boy—Kailen—introduced himself distractedly, patting Jack the cow's side. "I hope Mom doesn't change her mind later."

The name didn't strike any familiarity with Sam. "You can call me Sam, Kailen," he said but did not ask what the boy meant at the last one.

Kailen looked at him, suddenly shy when he gave a faint nod. "I will, Sam."

"Kailen," Sam began, kneeling at the boy's level. "I know this will sound weird to you, but are you the one who brought me here?"

Kailen stared at him confusedly.

"It's your special place isn't it?" Sam tried again. "You must have brought me here. I'm not mad, Kailen, but I want to know why."

Kailen frowned. "But I didn't, Sam. I thought you're like them. They come here sometimes to play with me. Jack and Billie." Sam's eyes darted to the two cows chewing their food happily. Kailen giggled at Sam's reaction. "Not them, silly. I named my cow friends after my people friends: Jack and Billie. Jack is nice. He plays with me and the cows a lot! Billie looks mean with her big sword, but she's nice to me even if she never plays with me."

Jack and Billie. If there were different versions of Sam, there could have been other versions of Jack as well, but Billie on the other hand…

There could only be one version of Death, and if Billie was with Jack, then it could only be—

"This Jack, is he—is he okay?"

Because even if Sam didn't understand and he didn't have an explanation as to _how_ he wanted to ask.

"Jack's okay. He has cool powers too, you know? He's the one who taught me how to make my dream space, and he can make things float like magic!"

"Where—Where is he?" Sam asked, voice brimming with hope because Jack was _alive_ and well. "Can I see him?"

"Oh. I don't know where he is, Sam," Kailen said in dismay. "He always comes and leaves with Billie through an orange line. I don't know how Jack can do that, but he said he'll teach me when I'm older."

"Do they come here often, Kailen?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes they don't. But when Jack promised me that he will come, he does."

"Oh." Sam tried tempering down the disappointment in his voice.

"Do you know them, Sam?"

"I do," Sam answered. It was far from his mind to lie to this kid, oddly enough. "Jack, especially."

"Are you Jack's dad?"

Sam softened at the utter curiosity of this boy. "I don't know, Kailen. He has a good Dad, but, yeah, I took care of Jack when his Dad wasn't around. I'm an uncle, I guess."

"I have an uncle too. Two uncles. But they don't know me because they don't like my Dad." Kailen sat in front of Sam glumly. "It must be nice to have an uncle."

"But it's just your Dad that they don't like, not you."

Kailen shook his head and sheepishly added, "I don't think they like my Mom either."

Sam felt terrible for starting the subject. "You're not your parents. Please remember that."

"No, I'm both of them, Sam," the boy said. "That's what Mom said, that I'll get her half and my Dad's half."

Sam didn't have any words to refute that.

"I'm fine with my Mom's half, Sam, but I don't want my Dad's. He's mean. What if I'm mean too, Sam? I don't want to hurt Jack and Billie and Jack and Billie the cows."

Sam slid next to the boy who looked like on the verge of crying. "You said that you only get his half, right? Then it means it's not whole, Kailen. Your other half from your Mom can be good, and if that half is so good, then it'll win against your Dad's half and you'll be wholly good."

Tears truly left the boy's eyes. "My Mom. What if—What if my Dad gets to her? Will her half in me be gone?"

"What do you mean?"

"My Mom is running from my Dad because she said that Dad wants to hurt her. Jack said he'll help me protect my Mom, but what if he's too late?"

Sam swallowed. "Where is your Mom now, Kailen?"

"Somewhere safe. For now. She's alone and afraid. She hasn't eaten. She's growing weak, Sam," Kailen said, sniffing. "I want to help her, but I can't. Not yet."

Sam held back from giving a promise he couldn't keep. He would help if he could. If there was even a way to get to where Kailen's mother was.

"There is, Sam," Kailen said with a hiccup. "It won't be easy, and Mom will have to move, but with Jack's help, it'll be possible."

The boy could read minds too. Like _him._

"No, Sam, you just think too loudly."

And Sam looked at Kailen, truly looked.

Albeit watery, he saw the familiar, young hazel eyes staring back at him. It was Sam's own eyes—the Boyking's own eyes when cleared with that darkness. Kailen's youthful face was dusted with freckles, so was his small nose that was definitely from Sam's features. And his ginger hair…

Was he reaching to assume he might know who Kailen's mother was?

The boy smiled at Sam patiently. He knew what Sam was thinking, and he sent him an encouraging expression that basically confirmed that Sam was right in his suspicions.

"Your mother is Rowena," Sam concluded breathlessly. "But—" The last time he saw the other Rowena, she was about to get killed by the Boyking, Sam was almost tempted to blurt out in front of a kid, her son, no less.

But he never did see the end of that particular memory, did he? Sam was out there as soon as he saw a replica of Rowena because he couldn't deal with the final memories of his own Rowena.

_You haven't seen it all yet, Sam, but here you are already judging._

The Boyking had said that it had been quite a while before he had felt something else again, and when Sam had asked what he had meant, the Boyking's attention turned to the last scene, the lines of his face less cutting, almost as if he was… fond.

What if? What if that was the Boyking meant?

"You figured it out, Sam," Kailen said. He smiled weakly. "You're as smart as Dad, but his name is Sam Winchester too so he's also you, except you're not from around here. I think Billie once said that all of us have a copy in different places far, far away. You're like that, aren't you, Sam? You're a copy of my Dad, the copy of my Dad where he's not called the Boyking.

"My Dad is not good, Sam, but please don't hate me for having him as my father. Billie said I have both his powers and my Mom's magic, but I don't want to be like him. I want to be strong for my Mom, but I don't want to become like my Dad someday."

Jesus, how old was this kid to be burdened by the knowledge of his parentage?

"Hey, hey," said Sam gently, holding Kailen by his shoulders. "You're not going to be like him, okay? Not when you don't want it to be. You're the only person who controls your future, Kailen, no matter what the others say." He lightly ruffled the boy's curls before pulling him in an embrace. "You'll be a good kid because that's what you want."

Kailen's small arms wrapped themselves around Sam's neck, and Sam felt most of that heaviness that he carried within him crumbling. He lifted the kid in his arms like he was his, and for a while, Sam discarded the guilt, the weariness, the deep-seated regrets, the longing for something he could never have again…

He let himself savor the moment and thought of numerous what-ifs.

* * *

Sam felt a kind of lightness when he woke, and it must be damn good sleep, he thought.

He didn't remember, as if the events were at the edge of his mind but unreachable, though it was sufficient to fill him with a renewed sense of hope and purpose despite not knowing what exactly he was working towards.

For the first time in a while, Sam woke to the day unburdened.

* * *

Crowley shouldn't be here.

He didn't have a plan, a backup plan, and a backup plan for the backup plan. He entered the situation unprepared, went all in like an absolute madman who was risking his neck for the survival of the sole person he cursed the very existence of.

Crowley should be serving the Boyking Rowena's head on a spike, and yet here he was, winging his existence in some unknown world with a heavily pregnant woman that he hated. He dropped his good standing with the King of Hell, abandoned the position he had worked for centuries, but what he was furious about was that he hardly regretted doing so despite finding himself in some hospital of another world and admitting a weak Rowena.

And he was pretending to be the older brother of his own… mother, even.

Rowena had been unconscious the moment she closed the rift behind them; how she did so, Crowley didn't know yet, though the copious amount of magic she used for the seal certainly did not improve her diminishing health during the few days she had been on the run. Crowley could have let her own magic fix her up, knowing the modern medicine could scarcely contribute to the recovery of an ancient, powerful witch, though it was also highly possible that it was prioritizing the child first before the mother.

The warding of the hospital room wasn't up to par with what Rowena could make, but it would do for now. Crowley has no idea what threats awaited them here in this world, though he allowed himself to take mild comfort that they weren't followed here.

Not yet, anyway.

He left her for an hour to take a quick inspection of the surroundings; to get the lay of the land, if you would. A thorough sweep of the building told him that there was nothing but humans within the vicinity and a couple of reapers (who appeared the same way he knew them) here or there to fetch the dead and the dying. The outside was teeming with humans; the streets, the roads, the cities—they weren't lacking in the population of humans, normal ones as far as Crowley could see. No one stood out so far.

Along the way, he got a smartphone and hooked himself to the internet, concepts that were pretty similar to where he came from, saving him the time to learn. The local and global news displayed the typical market's fluctuation, the gormless politics inside and outside the country, celebrities dating who and who broke up with who: the usual banalities the mindless humans worry over in his world as well and where the Crossroads demons loved to capitalize on.

Crowley smirked. Well, it seemed that there was employment in this world for him.

If there were interesting things to take note of about the humans on the internet were their subcultures of nonsensical images they called 'memes' (whatever that was) and their apparent obsession over cats and dogs. Research for later, he promised himself.

Crowley needed a safe house, one dab smack in the middle of a city or within a town. Blending in would be preferable; after all, isolation would only call attention to itself. Besides, it wasn't like they would go out and mingle with the yokels—show their faces from time to time, maybe, but no further interaction beyond that.

Crowley broke that line of thought. Staying with Rowena and her child wasn't part of the measly patched up plan. They were out of his responsibility once the tyke was born—Hell, they shouldn't be his responsibilities _now. _

With a snap of his fingers, he was back to the room. Rowena remained asleep, still hooked to the IV as Crowley approached her bed.

He could kill her now and be done with it, he thought. He owed her nothing in the first place, not even his life as a human before. She hadn't been there when the townspeople almost burned the ten-year-old him in the stake for having a witch for a mother who they claimed consorted with the Devil and borne him a son. What saved Crowley that day was, ironically, a miracle that he never had the chance to figure out.

Killing her meant killing the child, this child she dearly loved. His _half_-_brother_. Compared to Crowley, the child would know love and affection from his own mother if he would be born. Rowena, the despicable woman she was who had loved nothing but herself, was willing to sacrifice everything for her unborn babe.

This child already earned effortlessly what should have been Crowley's by right many years ago.

Crowley's hand hovered threateningly above Rowena. A snap was all it would take, yet it would bore all those anger and envy that had easily twisted and corrupted his soul during his time in the rack.

It would be so easy.

Crowley put down his hand and retreated quietly, slumping down on the lone cushion.

Bollocks.

* * *

The alert came in like a harsh stab in the gut.

Immediately, Crowley's eyes looked for Rowena. She was still sleeping, her breath shallow but even. She didn't look harmed on the outside, and yet the wards were ringing incessantly, warning Crowley of a threat.

It was coming from outside.

He peered behind the blinds—no one was outside the room, but it was nearby, whatever the threat was.

Boldly, and rather stupidly, he might add, he decided to look for it.

Crowley was well aware that he would come to regret the decision later, but he has to know. There was danger in not knowing, and in this world where he only has himself to rely on, he has to be the one to do so.

The hallways of the hospital were quiet and dark after midnight. The sound of an ambulance and the beeping machines were distant and inconsequential, and Crowley paid them no mind.

The eerie stillness of the vicinity, however, was something to take note of.

He passed by a lone nurse by the reception snoozing away during her shift, and when he turned to the dim corridor on his right he knew the source was coming from there.

The closer Crowley approached, the stronger he felt a force beckoning him nearer and nearer…

It was familiar, he realized, the compulsion to follow, to please, to _serve_.

Crowley stopped in front of a hospital room and swallowed.

He knew who he would find inside. As to how and why, he was past caring—he needed to bolt and take Rowena with him now. _Fast_.

Crowley turned around to meet face-to-face with a girl in a hospital gown, her cheek marred with a healing wound that should have made her appear impuissant with her big doe eyes.

No, he thought, no matter what vessel _she_ was in, no matter what version of another world _she_ was, _she_ was far from vulnerable.

The young vessel's face morphed into a wide, baleful smile. "Hello, Crowley."

"Lilith," Crowley recognized.

It was jarring, the innocence that Lilith's vessel was able to display in contrast with the scrutinizing gaze she was giving him. She merely stood there, studying him with the focus of a mad scientist observing a rare and interesting species under a microscope.

Crowley couldn't decide whether he was frozen out of terror or by Lilith's own presence. Perhaps both.

"Ah, my bad," she suddenly said. "It seems that I mistook you for the Crowley I know." She rounded him, trailing delicate fingers across Crowley's shoulders. "Same meatsuit and all. But you're not _that _Crowley, are you? You're not from around here. Other world?" She jumped in front of him. "What is it like over there?"

It was hard not to jolt at her movements, though Crowley was able to muster a thin smile and a straight face. "Just peachy."

Lilith hummed, edging closer in his personal space. Her vessel was shorter than the Lilith Crowley knew. In fact, he had been intimately familiar with that vessel after feeding her piece by piece to his precious Hellhounds. Given her regeneration speed, she had been an endless food supply for his pets.

"Well, now." Lilith encircled her arms around his neck. "You wouldn't have to go here if it's 'just peachy' over there." She bit her lower lip. "Did we win there?"

"In a way," he answered vaguely, which was probably not wise. She scraped a particularly sharp nail to his nape. "The King of Hell certainly has Hell's best interest."

"Now I know for sure that it's not our Dark Lord. I learned that he despised the demonkind the same way he hated humans." Lilith sighed, mock-wistful. "So who is it, Crowley? Who's your ruler who 'has Hell's best interest'?"

Crowley knew he shouldn't, but with Lilith's hands around his neck, there was no choice but to answer, "Sam Winchester, the Boyking."

Lilith drew back sharply, and for a moment, Crowley feared that she would incinerate him on the spot for that revelation alone.

To his surprise, she doubled over and laughed and laughed.

She laughed that kind of laugh that did not make Crowley relax for a second. She laughed that kind of laugh that made him shiver, that as much as she found the answer outrageous, she did not like it _one bit_.

"How could I not believe Him?" she managed after recovering a little. "He droned on and on about His other Sams, His other Deans, and I barely batted an eye when He said there exists a Sammy who became a demon after all that demon blood and became the Boyking for it."

She looked at him like she was sharing the best joke of eternity, the punchline of the lifetime, but the only thing Crowley registered was that Lilith was no longer talking about Lucifer and Sam Winchester.

"Who?" he asked, trying to keep his voice even. "Who said that?"

"Why, the G-Man, of course," she said delightfully, then groaning at his confusion. "Chuck? God? Like, capital _G _God."

What?

"Oh, yes, Crowley. You see, at the beginning, he liked his creations. He's a writer, you know? A bad one, but who will dare say that to his face?" She fiddled with his necktie. "Anyway, he liked his main characters so much that he was rooting for them to win every single time. He made them win every battle, every Apocalypse, and he resurrected them whenever they die. He gave them plot armors. He even wrote himself in, if you could believe it. So meta.

"Unfortunately, his main characters got to know him, thought him a douche—which he was, by the way, but you didn't hear that from me—and they were very ungrateful for all his interventions. He woke up one day and decided that he wasn't needed in the plot anymore so he upended the structure of his story.

"The very writer became the villain of his own story, and his beloved main characters were set on a journey of killing their creator. He's no Shakespeare, I know, but, hey, we're all part of the ensemble. Now he's hurtling at them his greatest hit, and _ta-da_, here I am, alive once more for an important mission."

Just when Crowley thought the Boyking following them here was the biggest threat awaiting them, he had to learn that this world was more fucked with the divine wrath upon them.

Talk about shite luck.

"But you," she began. "You're from one of his discarded drafts, but he never accounted for any of his other characters outside this world. Outside this place, He considered rejects." Lilith tilted her head, regarding him curiously. "Which means you're here either by mistake or a different interference. Personally, I think it's the latter."

"You got me," Crowley said with a smirk that fell quickly. "Even I don't know what I'm doing here."

"Doubt it." She reached up a finger to his forehead, giving it a tap. "Certainly not with that peculiar protection you're wearing."

Crowley knew nothing of this protection she spoke of, though there was no time to ponder on it once he felt the ground moving underneath them, and in a blink, he was back in Rowena's hospital room.

With Lilith.

She was instantly away from him, looming over Rowena's pale and unconscious form. "Look what we have here," Lilith cooed, eyes trailing over to Rowena's stomach. "A pregnant witchling." She grinned at Crowley. "Your _mommy dearest_."

Lilith made a show of sniffing the air around Rowena and gasping. "What is this? She's bearing a cambion." She touched the bump, leaning down to listen at the child kick. Crowley wanted nothing but to wretch her away and strangle her. "Ooh, this kid will pack a punch. Is this why you stow her away, Crowley? The Boyking not evil enough yet to handle your dirty little secret?"

"She's my mother, you sick fuck," Crowley snapped.

Lilith chuckled. "As if that stopped our kind before. You won't be the first. Just saying." She languidly stood, though she remained close to Rowena, her fingers playing with her red hair. "Sadly, I know _my_ Crowley. He was all for fun and games, but he wasn't really that freaky for my taste. And looking at you, with the same meatsuit, same mommy complex," she rolled her eyes, "I'd say you two are identical."

Let her insult him. She reveled at his powerlessness; he relished at the thought that the Lilith he knew was but a husk of her old self, no better than food for Hell's beasts.

Crowley tested his pinky finger. It twitched slowly, but his mobility was starting to return gradually. He simply needed to bid his time. Fortunately, she was more than willing to chatter away.

"Tell me then, Crowley, who's the baby daddy?" Lilith asked idly.

Crowley cringed. Anything but that subject.

"That's the funny thing. For all her ego, she chose some demon nobody to put a litter in her," he answered blithely. "But then again, she's a common whore since the very beginning."

Lilith's eyes flitted from him to Rowena. "Hmm."

Without looking, she raised a finger lazily and made a gesture that had the front of Crowley's meatsuit bleeding out of a long deep gash.

Crowley suppressed the scream of pain that almost escaped him.

"I don't appreciate being lied to, Crowley," she said in warning. "It's just a simple question, really."

"What is it to you," he said through gritted teeth. "If my whore of a mother is heavy with a half-demon?"

Lilith shrugged. "You gotta throw a girl some bone here. I'm literally resurrected yesterday. Sleeping in the Empty did not keep me entertained." She studied her nails with faint interest. "Besides, something tells me that you wouldn't risk lying to me and making the great escape from your world if this babe is simply a half-demon baby."

"Fine." Crowley fixed her a stare. "It's the bloody Antichrist if you're so damn interested."

A sign of faint interest crossed her features. It was unsettling, the way Crowley couldn't figure out what she could be thinking behind that façade of guilelessness. "Ah, now that's an answer."

Lilith bought that. She honestly bou—

"Sike!" she yelled gleefully, pointing her index finger to his shoulder and twisted.

Crowley howled at the drilling sensation that burrowed deeper and deeper until it pierced the bone of his shoulder. Fucking Hell, it hurt—it hurt, and he couldn't do shite about it.

"See, the title of Antichrist isn't so much to be fussed about if you think about it," she said, walking over Crowley. "Funny alias since it surely won't be the savior of demons. It's a tool of the Apocalypse. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly not worth jumping over another world."

She grasped his chin. "It's a special child. Special not only to you but to where you came from. Something worth crossing over to hide and keep securely." She searched his face, his eyes, and Crowley held her gaze defiantly, unwavering. "Would you like to hear my theory?"

"Since you're so eager to hear your own voice, why not share to the class anyway?" he spat.

Lilith tutted. "Such ferocity. Your protectiveness is showing, Crowley." She stroked his cheek softly. "Very few things mattered to you." She spared a glance behind her. "That's one and the other is Hell itself.

"The fact that you're here, willing to bare your neck even to me, means you're scared—scared of something bigger. Badder." Lilith wiped the sweat from his forehead. "It's not Lucifer."

Crowley loathed the understanding that dawned on her young face as if she figured out a huge puzzle. "You're scared of the Boyking."

Lilith burst into another fit of cackles.

"And you're scared because you just stole his kid, didn't you? Oh, this is rich!"

Crowley was silent. Curse Lilith and her apparent intelligence to piece it all together without any affirmation from him.

"A royal kidnapping! I can't believe you have it in you." Lilith's eyes remained alight with amusement. It wasn't long before it was overtaken by a sadistic elation. "Let's make a deal, Crowley.

"I won't tell the G-Man about this hidden plot twist—since, frankly, this will make that bland story of his more interesting—while I go about on this 'important mission' that he tasked me. But once I'm done…"

She leaned down to whisper. "You'll make some introductions then little 'ol me will be the babysitter to your darling little brother. Bound to be a more exciting summer job than being an Uber driver, don't you think?"

The moment Crowley felt her hold on his entire body slacken, his hands were instantly around her thin neck and squeezing the life out of the girl Lilith was wearing.

Except to Lilith, the gesture was merely amusing, even with her meatsuit choking on the floor under him without an ounce of struggle.

"You've always been a lover, Crowley, never a fighter," she said between gasping breaths that hardly bothered her.

Lilith grinned up at him, her eyes turning white. "Now _wake_."

* * *

Sam frowned.

It seemed rather strange, this case. They stumbled upon it by chance, got an immediate lead, of all things, and a living witness—albeit traumatized but willing to speak nonetheless. What was left for them to do now was to locate the address of this Andy May and confirm for themselves whether he was the werewolf.

It all seemed too easy.

Dean would like the easiness and the smoothness, that was for sure. Sam did too, honest, but…

He couldn't explain the feeling of wrongness.

Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose, sensing an impending headache. He made a left, quick for the exit where he could see a phone booth right outside.

He had to pause, however, when the pain behind his eyes refused to be abated. It wasn't alarming until the pain became white-hot, almost blinding, almost—

* * *

_Sam was walking in a hallway—the hospital's hallway. He knew physically that he wasn't, but his eyes were seeing something else like he was dreaming while awake. And he was walking and walking…_

_He stopped in the vision and turned to his right. _

_Room 407. _

* * *

"Sir? Sir!"

A nurse shook Sam by his shoulder. Bewildered, Sam smacked the hand away, panting and his eyes wild. He was already sitting by the cold floor, back against the wall.

"Are you alright, sir?"

"I'm fine." Sam stood up weakly. "I'm fine."

"Sir, with all due respect, you look—"

Sam broke into a run.

* * *

_404…_

Sam didn't get it.

_405… _

He didn't get why, how, or what it was.

_406… _

He never did understand the dreams, no matter how much reading he did.

They never brought him comfort, not when the last thing he remembered was the Boyking about to kill Rowena. And yet he knew, he knew something else that was missing there in his mind.

The last one, the last one that he forgot.

But there was something there—a feeling. Something opposite.

Something _good_ for a change.

_407…_

It was the feeling of carrying something in his arms and close to his chest.

Something small.

Ginger hair.

Hazel eyes.

A boy named Kailen.

Sam twisted the knob and opened the door.

She was pale, with dark bags under her eyes, and no makeup painted her face.

But Sam recognized her as soon as she saw her, recognized the fiery determination in her green eyes despite looking like she narrowly escaped death because that was how she was, not letting anything put her down permanently.

"Rowena," he called, like a harsh rasp of air.

Her eyes were wide when she stared at him. Unbelieving… terrified.

Sam swallowed.

"Oh, you got to be kidding me."

The next thing Sam knew, he was thrown aside, his body colliding with the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of him, dangerously close to making him pass out when he vaguely heard Rowena calling his name and crouching near him.

"Woman, do you have a bloody death wish?!"

Crowley—That was Crowley. That British voice could only be his.

"Of course I don't, you—you bloody _bampot_!"

Against his better judgment, Sam let out a bark of laugh.

Crowley and Rowena's arguing voices stopped, and Sam could hear the confusion in their silence.

He must be getting insane. He must _be_ because he thought, for a split-second, that he heard a boyish giggle.

"Then tell me now a good reason why we shouldn't kill him!" Crowley hissed.

Rowena rolled her eyes at Crowley. "Because, Crowley, this is not _him_."

"How are you su—"

"Because _he _will not let you catch him off-guard."

Sam sat up properly this time, shaking the dizziness away. "Ow."

Rowena went on like Sam didn't speak. "And as if he'll be caught with that disgusting get up."

"So he's the fashionably challenged version of Sam Winchester that originated here in this world. Pray tell how he happened to find you then."

"I can hear you two, you know," Sam interrupted.

It was a little unsettling how in sync they turned to him.

"Well? How did you find us?" Crowley grilled, his eyes turning red. He was clearly agitated. "Did someone send you?"

Sam raised his hands, placating. "I'm not sent by someone, but you're right. I'm Sam Winchester." He looked at Crowley then Rowena then back and forth. "You two already know that, don't you?"

Crowley clicked his tongue. He was less tense than earlier, though he was still close to snapping Sam away from existence with one wrong move. "Still doesn't explain how you're able to locate us."

The words spilled out of Sam before he knew it. "I had dreams before, like a few weeks ago. It started since then." It started after he killed Rowena, to be precise. "About the Boyking. All of them except the last, I think. I honestly don't remember that one particularly, but I recall a boy. I think he's also the one who showed me the way here too."

Crowley cursed under his breath at the mention of the Boyking. "Of course you and the Boyking are connected. Of _bloody _course!"

Rowena was the only thing standing between Crowley and Sam, and if she didn't believe him, Sam knew he would be left here, dead, and Dean wouldn't even know why and who had done him.

To Sam's surprise, Rowena touched his wrist, and she looked at him imploringly, reminiscent of Sam's last memories of _his _Rowena doing the same, urging him to plunge the knife in.

"Tell me. Who's the boy?" she asked softly.

Sam hesitated, fearing that he would disappoint her if he gave a wrong answer. "Kailen. I don't remember how he fit in, but it's the first thing that came back to me, his name."

"That's… good. That's good." The stress of his sudden arrival and the encounter with him seemed to have weighed down on her. Rowena plopped down on the chilly ground. Sam made a move to assist her, though she held up her hand. "I'm fine. _We're_ fine."

The hand that has been touching Sam made its way to her stomach which, upon closer inspection, was rather large and round under the green hospital gown.

Oh.

Rowena mustered a tired smile at Sam's surprise. "_This_ is Kailen."

Sam's mind tried to wrap itself at the revelation.

She scoffed when she sensed the incoming question. "Are you even surprised given his parentage?"

No. Not really, Sam decided and promptly kept his mouth shut.

"Look, I'm sure it's all touching, but we have to go, Rowena," Crowley cut in.

"Where?" Sam asked immediately.

Crowley squinted his eyes and stared down at Sam. "I'd say none of your business, but," he turned to Rowena to address her, "Do you trust him?"

"If Kailen does, then so am I," she said without hesitation.

Crowley looked like he wanted to object though let it be given that they seemed rather pressed for time. "You're from around here. Any safe place we can temporarily stay in?"

"The motel we're checked in. We'll find you a permanent safe house afterward."

"Fine." Reluctantly, Crowley reached out for Sam's shoulder after he latched on to Rowena's.

"Buckle up."

* * *

**tbc**


End file.
